When logic wasn't enough

[Trog]

This was the only situation in my adult life that I can remember whereby logic alone was not enough to stop the constant ruminations and pain of the breakup. In other breakups, I may have been upset but I could find solace in reason, reasoning out why we broke up or why we shouldn't be together. However, this break up was by far the most mental and emotional pain I went through and no amount of logic, even though the evidence of her abuse and our unsuitability was mountainous, it was of no use to me whatsoever.

The further out I get the more I am becoming convinced that this was/is a kind of PTSD, trauma bonding that we all went through that actually causes some kind pf chemical or physiological addiction. It makes NO logical sense for me to upset over a woman who treated me like absolute dirt and twisted the knife when I was down, I was never this upset over nice people!

Why do you think logic doesn't seem to help us heal in these breakups?

[fromheeltoheal]

Why do you think logic doesn't seem to help us heal in these breakups?

Because in order to attach a borderline mirrors you, which works to form and attachment because she is showing you an idealized form of yourself, the good she sees in you, so of course you're going to fall in love with that, as fake as it was but we didn't know that then, but not only that, what she's doing is taking the good in you as her own, to complete her self and counteract the bad she sees in herself.  And then, as the disorder goes through its stages and we enter devaluation mode, we no longer have that 'self' we'd formed using all of our life experience, she took it and we are left defenseless, so the onslaught of the subsequent abuse wounds us to our core.  Sucks to go through that, but the good news is we get to rebuild our selves from the ground up, keep the good, out with the bad, on our way back to our own personal bliss, but new and improved; it will and does happen, and ends up being the gift of the relationship.  My ex would make appearances in my dreams for quite a while, many months, always different versions of the same dream, but they eventually stopped entirely; my belief is that was my brain rewiring itself to make sense of the trauma, to allow the rewired brain to make logical and rational sense of the world moving forward, an upgrade I choose to believe, version 2.0, the result of field testing at BPD school.  It's a brand new world.  Take care of you!

[Blimblam]

Trog

because reality is a fantasy.  The one you had constructed to make sense of the world was adapted to your environmet it was an illusion.  The pwBPD was like the keystone to making sense of the world the way you have done your entire life, and they can make one painfully aware that it was all an illusion a fantasy you constructed to feel safe and interact with the world.  All of the justifications of rational, spiritual whatever were a thin facade to convince yourself that your entire life has not been governed by forces you were not even aware of. The facade covered old wounds and now they are surfaced and the unresolved truama is painful.

[sweetheart]

When I met my dBPDh I kept thinking about the myth of narcissus.( yes really  and I didn't think this might be a ) I remember thinking it was as though my h was falling in love with his reflection - me.

Unwittingly of course it was me who fell in love with my reflection.!

We are still together, and I now understand the path of this illness from idealisation to now living in the real world with a pwBPD.

Thinking back to the beginning of my relationship and how I felt, it was like I had been drugged with love and happiness. I could feeling it pulsating in my veins, I remember there being nothing in my head but thoughts of him - this defied all logic because I think I was closer to insanity than I was to sanity at that point in time. Those feelings continued to defy all attempts at external logic to challenge them until my h's first major dysregulation three years later.

Logic will never be enough to infiltrate the complexity of this disorder, it relies on attaching itself to our emotional centre where initially we are defenceless.

[rlhmm]

This was the only situation in my adult life that I can remember whereby logic alone was not enough to stop the constant ruminations and pain of the breakup. In other breakups, I may have been upset but I could find solace in reason, reasoning out why we broke up or why we shouldn't be together. However, this break up was by far the most mental and emotional pain I went through and no amount of logic, even though the evidence of her abuse and our unsuitability was mountainous, it was of no use to me whatsoever.

The further out I get the more I am becoming convinced that this was/is a kind of PTSD, trauma bonding that we all went through that actually causes some kind pf chemical or physiological addiction. It makes NO logical sense for me to upset over a woman who treated me like absolute dirt and twisted the knife when I was down, I was never this upset over nice people!

Why do you think logic doesn't seem to help us heal in these breakups?

   yes! i agree! this IS a form of ptsd that we suffer! big difference between loving a healthy non versus a pwBPD... .trying to reason with the unreasonable... .trying to make sense of the senseless... .it DOESN'T WORK! i equate it to buying a new jigsaw puzzle at the store where someone has taken 2 puzzles and taken from each and combined some of the pieces in each. you then bring it home... .and no matter how you try you CANNOT get all the damned pieces to fit! you get flustered and walk away.  you cool off and come back later thats when you examine the pieces closer and discover the cruel joke thats been played... .you feel taken and you wasted your money... .you go back to the store and you cant get your money back... .they in turn accuse you of tampering with the puzzle instead and no matter how hard you try to convince them... .you leave empty handed and with less than you started with no resolution... .simple analogy... .we have to realize that life isnt always fair... .it has its setbacks... .we need to take stock in ourselves... .move forward... .let the pain pass through and out of us like a good bowel movement. lean on those who care, learn from it so that we dont repeat the same mistakes... .and mostly forgive ourselves.   

[Lucky Jim]

Logic will never be enough to infiltrate the complexity of this disorder, it relies on attaching itself to our emotional centre where initially we are defenceless.

Hey Trog, I'm an analytical person, too, and wasted a lot of mental energy trying to "figure out" BPD, which proved far more complex than anything I had ever come across.  I finally decided that BPD consists of a cluster of paradoxes that will never make logical sense.  For example, those w/BPD fear abandonment, but will push you away hard.  They want love yet behave in unloving fashion.  They seek stability yet their actions foster chaos and turmoil.  They want closeness, but drive those closest to them away.  And on and on.  Yet get it.  The nature of BPD, in my view, is irrational and illogical.  LuckyJim

[rlhmm]

Logic will never be enough to infiltrate the complexity of this disorder, it relies on attaching itself to our emotional centre where initially we are defenceless.

Hey Trog, I'm an analytical person, too, and wasted a lot of mental energy trying to "figure out" BPD, which proved far more complex than anything I had ever come across.  I finally decided that BPD consists of a cluster of paradoxes that will never make logical sense.  For example, those w/BPD fear abandonment, but will push you away hard.  They want love yet behave in unloving fashion.  They seek stability yet their actions foster chaos and turmoil.  They want closeness, but drive those closest to them away.  And on and on.  Yet get it.  The nature of BPD, in my view, is irrational and illogical.  LuckyJim

i agree lucky. it is in a word, contradictory... .

[Grey Kitty]

Why do you think logic doesn't seem to help us heal in these breakups?

Your other breakups were not as painful, so I'm guessing you healed without noticing how you did it. Logic doesn't help heal emotional pain. It can get you out of rumination or some circular pit you are in, but it doesn't heal. I'm only aware of two things that help me heal pain:

1. Time passing

2. Letting myself really feel the pain.

Perhaps in your other breakups, you used logic to hold yourself together long enough for time to do the work.

[Copperfox]

Looking back, I remember even during the relationship, how fascinated I was with my ex's past, her stories.  They seemed so "different" to me, sort of mildly bizarre even (red flag I know, but still). Like a caricature of real life. I just kept asking her questions about things in her past, she was like a puzzle to me.  A bizarre but fascinating puzzle. Something my understanding-driven nature, my inner child, longed to figure out. 

I think trying to apply logic in the aftermath was much the same. Our relationship became the caricature. She was just this whimsical thing, ephemeral. You can't make sense of something that shifts so easily with every gust of wind.

[ADecadeLost]

Logic tends to fail when human emotion (let alone BPD) comes into play.  I think for logic to be applicable to your process, you need to account for the inherent irrationality of your ex.  Figuring out how to fit the concept of irrationality into your proof is the challenge.